The Truth About Manic
by The Mouse of Anon
Summary: Everyone always thought they knew everything about Manic... Turns out that Manic's been hiding more than anyone knows. C&C is appreciated. 1shot.


The Truth About Manic

By, The Mouse of Anon

Disclaimer: I don't own Manic or anyone else (except my warped version of him anyway), so satisfy yourself, and don't ask me to pay. For this you should know: If you try to sue, chances are you're screwed. (In short I'm poor, I own nothing except my ideas and fics, and you'd probably only get a couple of pennies out of me anyway.)

Author's Note: This is a little plot-bunny that's been kicking around in my head for a while; mainly because I _never_ bought that whole "Manic is an idiot with a surfer-accent" bullsht. Come on! He grew up on the street- in order to survive that long _without_ any emotional or physical scars he'd have to be pretty damn smart. As for the whole empath thing… I always think it fits his character since, if any of you SU fans out there have noticed, he's the most emotional of the triplets. That and I'm a little biased in favor of it due to being an empath myself (nowhere near the extent that Manic is in the fic). Now that all of that is said and out of the way- enjoy the fic and please review! If I get enough reviews I'll write a follow-up fic that goes into what would happen if Sonic and Sonia found out the truth about their brother! Reviews make the caushog happy.

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I've been through hell. Neither my brother or sister know it. I play myself as stupid around them. It's better that way. No one has to be dragged into my hell if I can keep them from knowing about it. Sonic and Sonia shouldn't know what their brother is. One of my sibs is a pampered princess; the other is a full-blown hero. As for me… I'm a thief (no problem of conscience for me there), but I've also killed. Neither of them has seen me pissed. They don't know what I can be like, they don't know that my "accent" is bullshit and I only use it to throw them off.

To give you an idea as to my reputation on the street, I'll tell you this: there are people that you couldn't trust within an inch of your life who turn white at the mention of my street-name. Were Sleet and Dingo to know my name they'd probably call off any attempts to attack me and my sibs ever again. Hell, they'd probably just be thankful to survive an encounter with me. I took Farrel's advice when I was growing up- I let people think the two different sides I show are separate people. Manic is the care-free goof-ball that everybody underestimates because they think he's too stupid to even know how to tie his shoes. Kleptomaniac is the demon that won't stop hunting a person he has in his sights until they're dead. Kleptomaniac is the monster that is impossible to kill and impossible to stop.

By comparison even the worst of stunts that "Manic" pulls is tame and livable. How can I keep anybody from knowing that both sides are part of the same whole? It's simple really; Kleptomaniac is hardly ever seen and when "he" is there is a lot less care for others. I deliberately make my body language different and do the same for how I speak. In turn I change from the "charming but not particularly bright thief-prince" into "the heartless monster that tolerates no enemies". For some odd reason people notice my eyes more when I'm "Kleptomaniac" than when I'm "Manic". If my siblings knew they'd probably never trust me again.

Not that I'd be able to blame them. As far as they know I wouldn't hurt a fly, despite the fact that I can create earthquakes with the strength of my arms alone. Not even Knuckles has anything on me when it comes to arm-strength. In truth my hands are stained with blood. I've killed some of the worst people to ever walk the street and come out of it without a scratch. Another thing my sibs don't know: like them I have speed on my side. Even if they had a clue I doubt they'd ever be able to figure out how much. I can sum it up easily: if I really wanted to I could give Sonic a hard time.

Is it any wonder why "Kleptomaniac" is considered a monster? Robotnik _has_ heard about Kleptomaniac and put out the word that he wanted to meet him once, but I could easily guess what he was going to ask for and so I respectfully declined. Not even he, supposed genius that he is, has put two and two together and realized the truth about me. I'm an empath, that's true enough, so I suppose most would wonder how I could ever bring myself to kill anyone. One thing people fail to notice is that _all_ the people I've ever killed are those the world is better off without. Yeah, I've gone trolling for rapists before and killed them on the spot. Not exactly the best sort of past-time for a prince, but somehow I don't feel I quite deserve the title.

Prince of Thieves, maybe; actual royal prince, no. As for why my life is hell… try having almost been grabbed a few too many times by the worst kind of people, add on top of that being able to recognize those kind of sleaze-balls a mile away and knowing your sister is engaged to a jackass who'd look the other way for one of those types, and being unable to do _anything_ about it. Yeah, that's right, if Bartleby thought it would benefit him in some way he'd probably lock me in a room with the type of person that really deserves to be gutted. Rapist, murderer, cannibal, pedophile; it wouldn't matter to him. He'd just shrug it off unless the person's actions got in the way of his own goals.

Sickening really. I'd rather kill him than ever let him put a hand on my sister. I can't though, so I have to settle for making him more and more unappealing in my sister's eyes. One good thing about my sibs underestimating me so much is that they would _never_ think that I could _ever_ be manipulative enough as to deliberately put myself in situations that point out Bartleby's flaws. Most people aren't that manipulative anyway, but as an empath I have an advantage others don't. I know how people think and react emotionally to certain situations. I know how to give them the right sort of nudge to put right in front of their faces what they wouldn't otherwise notice.

I couldn't ever bring myself to do anything like that to hurt someone; my being an empath would mean I'd feel all their pain. Knowing how others feel makes me one of the most sympathetic people in the world- it makes it so I don't want to hurt anybody. Yet because of that empathy I can't suffer a sleaze-bag to live when I end up _knowing _and picking up from them all that they've ever done to harm someone else without caring what damage they did. That is why I kill.

I'm a strong empath so I don't just pick up emotions, I also pick up images as well as the knowledge of whether it's just imagination or it actually happened. Growing up on the street I know plenty of people who have been violated, tormented, and abused in one way or another. Because I'm such a strong empath sometimes I have their nightmares and experience their hell as though it were my own. Because of those nightmares and how much I can pick up off of people I always know who did what kind of abuse to whom. _I've_ never been raped or beaten to within an inch of my life, but I've felt it and suffered through it so many times I've lost count.

I can't tell you the number of times I've woken up screaming, or how often Farrel would have to be right there at my bedside comforting me. I have no idea how often I wake in the night and just sit there curled in a ball and shivering with my eyes wide and heart pounding. Sonic and Sonia don't know it, but I have those nightmares even now despite being so nomadic. Everything I've ever experienced through anyone else feels almost like it has been burned into my brain. I can't forget it. Sometimes when I wake up I have to run to the bathroom and lock the door before I lose the contents of my stomach. Sonia and Sonic wonder why I eat so much. I don't bother telling them.

I suppose in a bizarre kind of way I've got a really messed up case of bulimia, but thankfully I don't feel the need to puke my guts out after every nightmare. If I did I think I'd be dead by now. Just about every monster I dream about in those nightmares, I hunt down and kill. They shouldn't be allowed to live. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with doing all the spraint they have. The people who I've gotten my nightmares from consider "Kleptomaniac" to be almost like some kind of "avenging angel", and I can't blame them. It's comforting, for them and for me, to know that a monster like the ones that haunt my mind can't hurt anyone else ever again. The ones that I kill have a tendency to vanish from my mind.

Is my conscience simply setting up these tasks for me so I can put my empathy to the best use? I have no idea. I do know however, that if Sonia and Sonic were to find out the truth about me they'd be horrified. After all, sweet and caring, not-quite-dumb-as-rocks Manic a killer? Regardless of the fact that I've never killed without a good reason, neither of my sibs have ever seen _any_ reason to kill as a good one. I can understand why, considering the sort of cushioned lives they've led in comparison to mine, but that by no means makes me agree with them. Sonia would probably give me one of her _looks_ if I told her that I thought her fiancé should be shot. Sonic would cheer me on for the comment though. He wouldn't want to see it through, but he sure as hell would like to laugh about it.

Neither of them would take me seriously about it, and that's as it should be. I lie to them both; but as much as that bothers me I know I would be even more bothered if they knew who I really am. If they were to know about "Kleptomaniac" I wouldn't have any guarantee that that knowledge wouldn't spread. They aren't too careful about eaves-droppers, they haven't had to be. If _certain _people knew who precisely my "other side" was, then chances are my sibs would be in danger. Not that they aren't already, but they haven't attracted the sort of attention I have, and they haven't had people on the street plotting to kill them.

So for me silence about my… excesses, is as golden as my eyes. For their sakes I stay quiet. It's for them that when I feel the need to get up in the middle of the night to go hunting that I don't wake them. It's for them that I lie. As for knowing how potentially vulnerable my sibs are… That gives me one more reason to kill the monsters in my dreams; a reason that I didn't have before I met them. I lock the door of the van behind me as I silently bid them goodnight. I wouldn't want one of those monsters to get to them while I'm gone. As soon as that door is closed and I'm gone into shadow, I drop the façade and let Kleptomaniac out to prowl.

End

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